The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories (Hardcover)

~ (Author), (Editor), (Translator), Rosalind Thomas (Introduction)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for THE LANDMARK THUCYDIDES

"A magnificent edition of the great historian's The Peloponnesian War."
--Los Angeles Times

"Without question, this is the finest edition of Thucydides' history ever produced. It is a treasure."
--The Washington Times

"This is the best book with which to start study of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War."
--Donald Kagan, author of On the Origins of War and Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy

"Thoroughly readable.... Anyone interested in the culture of conflict--political as well as military, contemporary as well as ancient--can learn much from this durable work."
--The Boston Globe

"The editor and his contributors have asked themselves the fundamental question: how can one best present and interpret the work of one of the most fascinating but difficult of ancient authors to a modern audience? They have answered this question brilliantly."
--Classical Quarterly


From the Hardcover edition. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Description

From the editor of the widely praised The Landmark Thucydides, a new Landmark Edition of The Histories by Herodotus, the greatest classical work of history ever written.

Herodotus was a Greek historian living in Ionia during the fifth century BCE. He traveled extensively through the lands of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and collected stories, and then recounted his experiences with the varied people and cultures he encountered. Cicero called him “the father of history,” and his only work, The Histories, is considered the first true piece of historical writing in Western literature. With lucid prose that harks back to the time of oral tradition, Herodotus set a standard for narrative nonfiction that continues to this day.

In The Histories, Herodotus chronicles the rise of the Persian Empire and its dramatic war with the Greek city-states. Within that story he includes rich veins of anthropology, ethnography, geology, and geography, pioneering these fields of study, and explores such universal themes as the nature of freedom, the role of religion, the human costs of war, and the dangers of absolute power.

Ten years in the making, The Landmark Herodotus gives us a new, dazzling translation by Andrea L. Purvis that makes this remarkable work of literature more accessible than ever before. Illustrated, annotated, and filled with maps, this edition also includes an introduction by Rosalind Thomas and twenty-one appendices written by scholars at the top of their fields, covering such topics as Athenian government, Egypt, Scythia, Persian arms and tactics, the Spartan state, oracles, religion, tyranny, and women.

Like The Landmark Thucydides before it, The Landmark Herodotus is destined to be the most readable and comprehensively useful edition of The Histories available.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1024 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon (November 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375421092
• ISBN-13: 978-0375421099
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.6 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #28,384 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

145 of 147 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous book -- makes Herodotus accessible to the general reader, December 8, 2007

By	Roy Speed (Bethel, CT United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you're interested in ancient history, you owe it to yourself to know something about Robert B. Strassler. This retired businessman did his undergraduate degree in -- and has had a lifelong interest in -- the classics. He has dedicated his "retirement," apparently, to the re-issue of ancient authors in handsome, reader-friendly editions. This is his second such edition, the first having been his Landmark Thucydides.

My comments so far:

THE MAPS. There is no edition of Herodotus like this -- abundant maps, all easy to use and pleasing to the eye. Newcomers to Herodotus will find the maps invaluable. The reason: Herodotus takes you on a tour of much of the ancient world, telling you stories and legends and relating recent history. You may not know exactly where Miletus was located, or Sardis, or the river Scamander, and you can't simply look them up on a Google map -- that world has vanished; the place-names are now all different. So it's incredibly helpful, when you bump into references to such places, to have at hand an attractive set of maps to refer to. Also, Strassler is faithful to his own method, which is always to provide at least TWO maps -- one an overview of a region (say, the eastern Mediterannean), the other a zoomed-in, detailed look at one portion of that region (e.g., the western coast of Turkey). As a result, the maps always work -- always helpful, never mystifying.

THE TRANSLATION. I'm no expert in ancient Greek, so I can't comment on the quality of the translation, which is by Andrea L. Purvis. Strassler, as the general editor of this edition, says that his goal was to ensure that the text "would be clear, simple, and easily comprehensible to a modern reader. My narrow objective occasionally created difficulties for Andrea and led to some disagreements between us -- she arguing for tighter fidelity to the Greek text and I for clarity in the English... With time and iteration, we were always able to find a mutually agreeable compromise."

THE PRICE. Were this book a college text, just looking at it, you might expect it to cost $70 - 80. The fact that you can get it for less than $30 is amazing.

My view, in short, is that if you're going to tackle Herodotus, this is the only way to do it.

81 of 81 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Greece through the eyes of the ancient Greeks, January 12, 2008

By	Ramesh Gopal (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Herodotus recorded primarily oral accounts of events leading up to the Persian Wars of 490 and 479-480 BCE and in the process describes the known world of his day. The detailed discussion (after a brief summary of mythic tales) begins at about 560 BC with Croesus of Lydia (he of "rich as Croesus") and concludes with the battle of Mycale and the siege of Sestos. He describes the interactions between Croesus and the Greek colonies on the coast of Asia Minor and then goes on to describe the foundation of the Persian Empire by Cyrus and its subsequent expansion under his successors. Herodotus perceives the conflict as the result of individual human actions, rather than of larger political and economic forces. His account is a grand story filled with digressions to describe a myriad individuals, places and historical anecdotes while building to the grand finale of the Greek victories over the Persians. The whole is a colorful, fascinating tapestry of Mediterranean life in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE.


Reasons to Read Herodotus
Readers interested in Ancient Greece can turn to many sources but reading Herodotus (and Thucydides) has the benefit of seeing Greece through the eyes of the ancient Greeks themselves. Thus the history and culture come alive from a first person perspective. The Histories are literally an `inquiry' (it was Herodotus who gave the word `history' its current meaning, until then there being no such concept) into the causes of the conflict between Greeks and Persians. He attempts to provide evidence for his conclusions and indicates where he disagrees with existing wisdom.
Herodotus is an astonishingly sophisticated and cosmopolitan observer. In Book 2, Chapter 3, referring to the Egyptians, he observes that with regard to religion he does not think that any one nation knows much more about such things than any other. This attitude is not universal even now and was almost unheard of until the 20th century. Herodotus has influenced us in ways we may not suspect. The informal motto of the US postal service (...neither snow nor rain nor heat nor dark of night keeps them from completing their appointed course) comes from Book 8, Chapter 98, referring to the Persian system of royal couriers.
The remarkable notion to emerge from reading the Histories is that while the emphasis seems to be on Greece, in fact it was the Persian Empire that was the 800 lb gorilla of the Mediterranean World. The war was in no way a conflict between the absolutes of good and evil. Numerous Greek cities sided with Persia, and there were influential pro-Persian lobbies even in the cities (e.g. Athens) that fought it. The exiled Spartan king Demaratos lived at the Persian court and accompanied Xerxes on his Greek expedition, advising him on the way. The Athenian general Themistocles after defeating the Persians on behalf of the Greeks ended up living at the court of Xerxes' successor in later life. The nuanced portrayal of antagonists (while recognizing affiliation to one side) is a special gift of the Greeks and dates back to Homer with his sympathetic portrayal of the Trojans.


Reasons to read this particular edition
The Landmark Herodotus has several useful features. The Histories are all about the geography of the ancient world and maps are essential to understanding them. The Landmark Herodotus has the appropriate maps (127 in all) interspersed with every few pages of the text, supporting every episode for easy reference. Notes on the text occur at the bottom of each page instead of in a separate section at the end of the book, making reference easy. The text is cross-referenced, i.e. when Herodotus refers to something described elsewhere in the Histories notes indicate the precise book and chapter. A short summary of each chapter appears in the adjacent margin as a side note. This makes flipping back and forth easy. Finally, at the top of each page is a running head providing at a glance the date, location and a summary of the action on that page. Twenty-one appendices provide additional information. These are relatively short (a few pages each) and to the point, though of variable quality. Some provide additional information, some only commentary on the text. The index, glossary and bibliography are designed for the general reader wanting more information.

Casual readers may find the world of Herodotus a strange and alien world. The more discerning reader will realize that the descriptions of politicians lying, cheating, changing sides and taking and giving bribes are no different from the headlines of today. This is what made the battle of Thermopylae stand out as an exception rather than the rule (then, as now). When King Leonidas realized he had a rare opportunity to demonstrate moral fiber he decided that it would `not be decent' for the Spartans to leave their post in the face of the much larger Persian army when he had been sent specifically to guard the pass. Instead, he dismissed his allies (perhaps forestalling them deserting anyway, but in any case saving their lives) and led a charge dying together with all 300 of his Spartans. His name has echoed down the millennia.

Tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
That here obedient to their laws we lie.

109 of 114 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An uncommonly handsome and useful volume, November 8, 2007

By	Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This new volume is a companion piece to the earlier "The Landmark Thucydides," also edited by Richard B. Strassler.

Like its predecessor, the translated ancient text is accompanied by numerous side-notes that quickly orient the reader chronologically and geographically and also includes excellent, detailed essays exploring various relevant matters. Perhaps most important of all are the maps, a necessity for the modern reader when studying events of over two thousand years ago. Strassler has chosen to provide not merely a handful of general maps, as would be likely in most books of this kind, but instead well over a hundred very clear maps.

I cannot yet comment upon the translation, beyond saying that at first approach it appears straightforward and highly readable. Herodotus is our principal source for the story of the wars of the Greek city states against Persia, and he did much to shape our perceptions of that struggle and our views of the Greeks. An edition of "The Histories" such as the present volume is in that regard a real touchstone in appreciating the roots of the modern West.